Accelerate Workload Migration and Modernization — SAP-C02 Practice Quiz

Question 1

A company is planning to migrate roughly 800 on-premises servers to AWS over the next 18 months. The infrastructure team knows the servers exist but has poor documentation about which applications run on them, how the servers communicate with each other, and their current CPU, memory, and network utilization patterns. Leadership wants a data-driven migration plan that groups servers into application move groups and rightsizes EC2 targets, but corporate security policy forbids installing any third-party software agents on the production VMware fleet. Which approach BEST meets these discovery and planning requirements?

Accepted Answer

Deploy the AWS Application Discovery Service Agentless Collector as a virtual appliance in vCenter to continuously collect utilization and network dependency data, then use Migration Hub to group servers into application move groups.

Answer

Install the AWS Application Discovery Agent on each of the 800 servers to gather detailed process-level and network connection data, and view results in Migration Hub.

Answer

Use AWS Migration Evaluator with a manual spreadsheet inventory provided by the infrastructure team, then estimate EC2 sizes based on documented specifications.

Answer

Enable AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) replication on all servers immediately so that CloudWatch metrics from the launched test instances reveal dependencies and utilization.

Question 2

A financial services company runs a monolithic on-premises Java application that relies heavily on a self-managed RabbitMQ cluster for asynchronous messaging between internal components. The company wants to migrate to AWS with minimal application code changes and no re-engineering of the messaging protocol. The messaging middleware must remain compatible with the existing AMQP 0-9-1 clients, and the operations team wants AWS to handle broker patching, high availability, and automated failover across Availability Zones. Which approach best meets these requirements with the least migration effort?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the messaging layer to Amazon MQ for RabbitMQ deployed in a cluster deployment mode across multiple Availability Zones.

Answer

Refactor the application to publish and consume messages using Amazon SQS standard queues and Amazon SNS topics for fan-out.

Answer

Deploy RabbitMQ on a self-managed Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group with an Application Load Balancer in front of the broker nodes.

Answer

Replatform the messaging layer to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams and update the application to use the Kinesis Client Library.

Question 3

A retail company runs a production Amazon Aurora MySQL-compatible cluster supporting an e-commerce platform that processes thousands of transactions per minute. As part of a modernization effort, the database team must perform a major version upgrade of the Aurora engine. The business requires that the upgrade be tested against production-like data and traffic patterns before cutover, that the switchover to the new version take no more than a few minutes, and that a fast rollback path exists if issues are detected after cutover. Which approach best meets these requirements with the least operational effort?

Accepted Answer

Create an Amazon RDS Blue/Green Deployment for the Aurora cluster, upgrade the engine on the green environment, validate it while replication keeps it in sync with blue, and switch over during a maintenance window.

Answer

Take a manual snapshot of the cluster, restore it to a new cluster running the target engine version, redirect application traffic to the new cluster, and delete the old cluster after validation.

Answer

Use AWS DMS to replicate data from the current cluster to a newly provisioned cluster running the target engine version, then cut over the application endpoint once DMS reports full-load and CDC completion.

Answer

Modify the cluster in place to the target engine version during a scheduled maintenance window and rely on the automated pre-upgrade snapshot for rollback if the upgrade fails.

Question 4

A company is migrating a 40 TB self-managed MySQL 8.0 database from an on-premises data center to Amazon Aurora MySQL-Compatible Edition. The data center has a 500 Mbps internet connection that is shared with production traffic, and the business requires that ongoing changes be captured and applied so that final cutover downtime is under 15 minutes. The migration team wants to minimize impact on the shared network link during the initial bulk load while still meeting the low-downtime requirement. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Export the full database to an AWS Snowball Edge device for the initial bulk load, then use a single AWS DMS task with change data capture (CDC) over the network to replicate ongoing changes until cutover.

Answer

Run a single AWS DMS full-load-plus-CDC task entirely over the existing 500 Mbps internet connection and schedule the full load during a maintenance window.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the raw MySQL data files to Amazon S3, then restore them directly into Aurora and enable binlog replication for ongoing changes.

Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to rehost the database server as an EC2 instance, then convert it to Aurora after cutover.

Question 5

A financial services company runs a legacy .NET Framework application on Windows Server 2012 EC2 instances behind an internal load balancer. The application is a monolith that has no source code changes anymore and the original developers have left. Leadership wants to modernize the deployment to reduce OS patching overhead and improve density, ideally moving to containers without rewriting the application. The team has minimal container expertise and needs a repeatable, low-effort path to containerize the running application and generate the necessary deployment artifacts. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS App2Container (A2C) to discover the running application, containerize it into a Windows container image, and generate ECS/EKS deployment artifacts and a CI/CD pipeline template.

Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to replicate the EC2 instances, then manually write Dockerfiles to package the application into containers after cutover.

Answer

Rewrite the monolith as ASP.NET Core microservices running on AWS Fargate, decomposing functionality by business domain before migrating.

Answer

Use AWS Elastic Beanstalk with the .NET on Windows platform to deploy the application without any code changes and let it manage the underlying instances.

Question 6

A retail company runs a self-managed Apache Cassandra cluster on 12 EC2 instances backing its product catalog service. Operations staff spend significant time patching nodes, managing repairs, and scaling the ring during seasonal peaks. Leadership wants to eliminate this operational burden while keeping the existing CQL-based application code changes to an absolute minimum, and they require the migration cutover to complete with less than 5 minutes of write downtime. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Migrate to Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) using the CQL COPY command for historical data plus a temporary dual-write from the application to both clusters during cutover, then switch reads to Keyspaces.

Answer

Migrate the data to Amazon DynamoDB using AWS Glue to transform the schema, and rewrite the application to use the DynamoDB SDK.

Answer

Rehost the Cassandra cluster onto larger EC2 instances in an Auto Scaling group and use AWS Backup to reduce the operational effort of the ring.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with a full-load-plus-CDC task to replicate the Cassandra cluster into Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.

Question 7

A company must vacate its colocation data center in 90 days after a lease was not renewed. The environment contains roughly 250 physical and virtual servers running a mix of Windows and Linux workloads, including several tightly coupled legacy applications whose source code is unavailable. The team has no capacity to refactor or re-architect anything before the deadline, but they want automated, block-level replication with continuous data sync so that final cutover produces minimal downtime and a low RPO. Which approach best meets these requirements within the timeline?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) to install replication agents on the source servers, continuously replicate to a staging area in AWS, then perform test and cutover launches.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with continuous CDC to replicate the servers to AWS and cut over once the target is in sync.

Answer

Order AWS Snowball Edge devices, export VM images and file systems to the devices, ship them to AWS, and import the images as AMIs for launch.

Answer

Re-architect the tightly coupled applications into containers on Amazon ECS and rebuild the databases on Amazon Aurora before the lease expires.

Question 8

A logistics company is migrating a 90 TB on-premises PostgreSQL database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The company's WAN link to AWS is a 500 Mbps connection that is also used for production traffic during business hours, leaving only about 200 Mbps of usable bandwidth for migration. Business rules require the application to remain read-write until a hard 6-hour cutover window on a weekend, during which only minimal downtime is acceptable. The solutions architect must move the bulk data and then apply ongoing changes so the cutover fits within the window. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Export the full database to an AWS Snowball Edge device, ship it to AWS to load the bulk data into RDS, and configure an AWS DMS change data capture (CDC) task from the source to keep the target synchronized until the cutover window.

Answer

Run a single AWS DMS full-load task over the existing WAN link, scheduling it to complete before the weekend cutover window and cutting over once the full load finishes.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the PostgreSQL data files to Amazon S3 over the WAN link, then restore the files directly into the RDS instance during the cutover window.

Answer

Take a native pg_dump during the 6-hour cutover window, transfer the dump file over the WAN link, and restore it into RDS before reopening the application for writes.

Question 9

A media company runs an on-premises NFS file share (approximately 40 TB) that feeds a legacy video-rendering pipeline. The company is migrating the rendering workload to EC2 and EFS in AWS over a 6-week transition window. During the transition, files continue to be created and modified on-premises, and the team needs those changes reflected in EFS on a recurring nightly basis until final cutover. The on-premises site has a 1 Gbps Direct Connect link with spare capacity at night. Which approach minimizes operational effort while keeping the AWS copy incrementally up to date?

Accepted Answer

Deploy an AWS DataSync agent on-premises, create a task from the NFS location to the EFS location, and schedule it to run nightly so only changed data is transferred each run.

Answer

Order an AWS Snowball Edge device, copy the 40 TB once, ship it to AWS, and load it into EFS; repeat the Snowball order weekly to capture incremental changes.

Answer

Write a cron job on the NFS server that uses the AWS CLI to sync files to an S3 bucket, then run a Lambda function to copy objects from S3 into EFS each night.

Answer

Use AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) with change data capture to continuously replicate the file share into EFS until the final cutover.

Question 10

A financial services company is migrating a suite of on-premises applications to AWS. One legacy component stores 40 TB of relational data in an IBM Db2 for z/OS database on a mainframe. The company wants to migrate this data into Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL with the least amount of custom coding for both schema conversion and ongoing replication, while keeping the source database available until cutover. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) to convert the Db2 schema and code objects to PostgreSQL, then use AWS DMS with a full load plus change data capture (CDC) task to migrate and continuously replicate the data until cutover.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to transfer the Db2 data files directly to Amazon S3, then use AWS Glue crawlers to load the data into Aurora PostgreSQL.

Answer

Export the Db2 tables to CSV, ship them to AWS using a Snowball Edge device, and write custom Lambda functions to transform the schema and import records into Aurora PostgreSQL.

Answer

Use AWS DMS alone with a full load plus CDC task, relying on DMS to automatically convert all stored procedures, triggers, and schema objects during the migration.

Question 11

A retail company is migrating a 4 TB self-managed MySQL database running on-premises to Amazon RDS for MySQL. The business requires near-zero downtime during cutover and needs assurance that all rows migrated correctly before the application is repointed. The initial full load has already completed successfully. Which approach best satisfies both the low-downtime and data-integrity requirements?

Accepted Answer

Enable AWS DMS change data capture (CDC) to continuously replicate ongoing changes after the full load, run DMS data validation to compare source and target rows, and cut over during a brief maintenance window once the replication lag is near zero.

Answer

Take a final mysqldump export from the source after stopping writes, restore it to RDS, and manually spot-check a sample of tables before repointing the application.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to synchronize the underlying MySQL data directory files to the RDS instance and enable checksum verification to confirm integrity.

Answer

Create a read replica of the on-premises database in RDS using native MySQL binlog replication only, then promote it without additional validation to minimize downtime.

Question 12

A company is migrating a 12 TB on-premises PostgreSQL database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL using AWS DMS. The source contains several very large tables with columns storing multi-megabyte binary documents (BYTEA / LOB data). The initial full-load task is running extremely slowly and occasionally fails, and the team observes that the LOB-heavy tables are the primary bottleneck. Downtime must be minimized, and the migration must complete reliably. Which approach BEST improves full-load performance and reliability for this workload?

Accepted Answer

Enable DMS limited LOB mode with an appropriately sized max LOB size, split the migration into multiple parallel task threads per table using table-level parallel-load settings, and separate the largest LOB tables into their own DMS tasks.

Answer

Switch the DMS task to full LOB mode with an unlimited LOB size and increase the replication instance to the largest available size to guarantee all LOB data transfers in a single pass.

Answer

Disable LOB migration entirely on the DMS task and use AWS DataSync to copy the binary documents separately after the relational data completes.

Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to export the entire database as flat files, then bulk-load into Aurora using pg_restore, bypassing DMS for the LOB tables.

Question 13

A retail company runs a self-managed MySQL 8.0 database on-premises that powers an order-processing application. The analytics team needs a copy of the order tables in Amazon S3, stored in Apache Parquet format, so they can run Amazon Athena queries. The requirement is that S3 must reflect both the existing historical data and any changes made in MySQL going forward, with a delay of no more than a few minutes. The source database must remain online for production use throughout, and the solution should minimize custom code and ongoing operational effort. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with a full load plus ongoing replication (CDC) task, an S3 target endpoint configured to output Parquet, and enable MySQL binary logging on the source.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the MySQL data directory to S3 on a scheduled task, then convert the files to Parquet with an AWS Glue job.

Answer

Use AWS DMS with a full-load-only task to S3 in Parquet format, and re-run the task nightly to capture new changes.

Answer

Export mysqldump files to an S3 bucket via a cron job, then trigger an AWS Lambda function to convert each dump to Parquet.

Question 14

A retail company is planning to migrate a 12 TB on-premises PostgreSQL 11 database to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL. The migration team has a strict requirement that the production database experience no more than 15 minutes of downtime during cutover. The database has a sustained write rate of roughly 200 transactions per second, and a dedicated 1 Gbps AWS Direct Connect link is available. The team wants to validate that the target data matches the source before cutover. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with a full-load-plus-CDC task to perform the initial bulk load and continuously replicate ongoing changes, enable DMS data validation, then cut over during a short window once the target is in sync.

Answer

Take a native pg_dump of the source, transfer the dump file over Direct Connect, restore it with pg_restore into RDS, and schedule the migration during a maintenance window when writes are paused.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the database data files to Amazon S3, then load them into RDS for PostgreSQL using the aws_s3 extension after stopping the application.

Answer

Create an RDS read replica of the on-premises database over Direct Connect, allow it to catch up, then promote it to a standalone instance during cutover.

Question 15

A retail company is planning to migrate a 4 TB on-premises Microsoft SQL Server database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. Before committing to the project timeline, the migration team needs a detailed report that quantifies how many database objects (stored procedures, triggers, functions, and views) can be converted automatically versus those requiring manual rework. Which approach provides this analysis with the LEAST effort before any data is moved?

Accepted Answer

Run the AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) or DMS Schema Conversion to generate a database migration assessment report that categorizes objects by conversion complexity.

Answer

Start an AWS DMS full-load-and-CDC task and review the CloudWatch task metrics to identify objects that fail to replicate.

Answer

Use AWS Application Discovery Service agents on the database server to collect object-level conversion estimates.

Answer

Export the SQL Server schema with native tools and manually compare each object against PostgreSQL syntax documentation.

Question 16

A media company is migrating a 400 GB PostgreSQL database from an on-premises data center to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL. The migration involves an initial full load followed by an ongoing change data capture (CDC) phase to keep the target in sync until cutover. The source database has highly variable write activity: near-zero changes overnight and heavy bursts during business hours. The team wants to minimize operational overhead and pay only for the replication capacity actually consumed, without manually sizing or scaling replication instances. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS Serverless, which automatically provisions and scales replication capacity (in DCUs) based on workload and charges only for capacity used.

Answer

Provision a large AWS DMS replication instance sized for peak load and leave it running for the entire migration window to avoid CDC lag.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to perform the full load and CDC replication, scheduling incremental tasks hourly to capture ongoing changes.

Answer

Deploy a fleet of small DMS replication instances behind an Auto Scaling group so capacity scales in and out with the source write volume.

Question 17

A retail company runs a 4 TB Microsoft SQL Server transactional database on-premises. The analytics team wants a continuously updated copy of the transactional data landed in Amazon S3 in Parquet format for querying with Amazon Athena, without impacting the production OLTP workload. The initial full load plus ongoing changes (roughly 5,000 transactions per minute) must be replicated with minimal transformation effort and no changes to the source schema. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Use AWS DMS with S3 as the target endpoint, configured for full load plus change data capture (CDC), and set the target to write Parquet files.

Answer

Use AWS DataSync to copy the SQL Server data files to S3 on a nightly schedule, then convert them to Parquet with an AWS Glue job.

Answer

Enable SQL Server transactional replication to an Amazon RDS for SQL Server instance, then export snapshots to S3 as CSV.

Answer

Use AWS Snowball Edge to perform the initial 4 TB transfer, then run periodic mysqldump exports uploaded to S3 with a Lambda function.

Question 18

A retail company completed a heterogeneous migration of a 4 TB Oracle database to Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL using AWS DMS with continuous CDC replication. Before the final application cutover, the compliance team requires documented proof that every row in the source and target is identical, without pausing the ongoing CDC replication or introducing significant additional load on the source database. The team wants a repeatable, AWS-native approach to detect row-level and data-type mismatches. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Enable DMS data validation on the existing migration task so DMS compares source and target rows and reports mismatches in the validation statistics tables.

Answer

Write custom SQL scripts that compute MD5 checksums of each table on both databases and run them nightly from a scheduled Lambda function.

Answer

Stop the CDC task, take an Aurora snapshot, restore it to a separate cluster, and manually spot-check a sample of tables against the source.

Answer

Use AWS Glue to crawl both databases and run a Glue ETL job that joins the datasets to identify differences.

Question 19

A retail company runs a self-managed Elasticsearch cluster on EC2 that indexes product catalog data. They are migrating to Amazon OpenSearch Service. The catalog is updated continuously by an application that writes to a relational database, and downstream search queries must never return stale results for more than a few minutes during the migration. The migration team wants the lowest-risk cutover with the ability to roll back if the new domain underperforms. Which approach best meets these requirements?

Accepted Answer

Configure the application's indexing pipeline to dual-write to both the self-managed cluster and the OpenSearch domain, backfill historical data via snapshot restore, validate query parity, and cut clients over gradually while keeping the old cluster available for rollback.

Answer

Take a snapshot of the self-managed cluster to Amazon S3, restore it into the OpenSearch domain, then immediately repoint all clients to the new domain and delete the old cluster.

Answer

Use AWS DMS to replicate the Elasticsearch indices directly into the OpenSearch domain with change data capture enabled, then switch clients once replication lag reaches zero.

Answer

Export the indices to CSV, load them into Amazon S3, use AWS Glue to transform the data, and bulk-load into OpenSearch before repointing clients.

Question 20

A retail company runs a monolithic Java order-management application on 40 on-premises VMs. Leadership wants to reduce total cost of ownership over the next 3 years and improve deployment agility, but only has a small team with limited AWS experience and a hard 6-month deadline to exit the data center. The application has tightly coupled modules and a large Oracle database. Which migration approach best balances the deadline, team capacity, and long-term modernization goals?

Accepted Answer

Rehost all VMs with AWS MGN now to meet the deadline, then incrementally refactor the monolith into microservices and replatform the database after the data center exit is complete.

Answer

Refactor the entire monolith into containerized microservices on Amazon ECS and migrate the Oracle database to Aurora PostgreSQL before the data center exit.

Answer

Repurchase by replacing the custom order-management application with a SaaS product and retire the existing codebase within the 6-month window.

Answer

Retain the application on-premises and use AWS Direct Connect to burst compute to AWS until the team gains enough experience to refactor.

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